It seems like just yesterday when we brought the little ducklings home, but it’s already been 16 weeks! Now that they have grown we are able to sort out who is male and who is female… and it looks like we have 3 boys and 1 girl. Less good for egg production, but more good for quiet duckies. So how can you tell if you have males or females?

We asked the woman who hatched them and she said that the males will have a small curly feather on the top of their tail and the females won’t. At the time we asked none of them had this curly feather but it has now appeared on 3 of the ducks, coincidentally on the 3 that have hair like their Dad.

Another way to tell is by their voices; females are super loud and the males are quieter. I’ve added a video at the end that shows the 3 boys chatting away softly, and the female piping up with her louder ‘quack.’ She’s definitely the one we can hear from the house! No sign of eggs yet, though apparently Indian Runners (who are the best duck breed for egg laying) start laying around 4.5 months which is about where we are at. Indian Runners can lay between 180 and 200 eggs a year!